Monday, April 26, 2010

COUNTDOWN TO THE AIMUN CONFERENCE 22 April, 2010 By Abdi Latif Dahir

Nairobi, Kenya -- The preparation for the Africa International Model of the United Nations (AIMUN) is coming to a close as the D-day to the conference draws in.

The international gathering will take place here in Nairobi, Kenya between 27th and 3oth of April, 2010. The convention is expected to bring together delegates from Africa, Europe, and Asia.

“The preparations for the conference are almost done,” said Salim Kombo, one of the members of the Secretariat Team that is organizing the conference. “We could say that 70 percent of the preparations have already been done.”

Promotion of UN values:The four day conference is a student-led and –run initiative that is expected to create awareness and education around the issues that affect the African person. The forum is also supposed to encourage communication and character-building among the continent’s youth.

The conference, whose theme for 2010 is “Promoting Global Economic, Social and Political Security,” aims to become “a platform for capacity building amongst the youth geared towards proactive solving of global problems within the UN context.” Up to 150 to 200 delegates are expected to attend this assembly from various universities across the African continent and beyond.

The debut of the African International Model of the United Nations (AIMUN) at the United States International University marks a significant turn for the varsity and the student representatives who will congregate at this important meeting. This is because previous efforts to come up with an African MUN had failed to bear fruit, hence falling short of creating a successful converging place for the African youth. From this experience, AIMUN organizers say their aim is to make this conference “a success” and make it “the biggest Model United Nations on the continent of Africa.”

Final preparations: The last three weeks have seen the final grounding of the conference taking place. The Secretariat in line with the different departments that are managing the conference, have been busy putting up the final touches on the venues and the materials needed.

Some of the things that need final handlings include: the conference bags, transport allocations for delegates, flight details for those flying into the country, tags design, certificates, delegates’ liability forms, training of delegates on different protocols, security details and also the acquiring of the full list of volunteers.

Besides, the AIMUN press team headed by Mary Sanyu has been covering stories concerning the latest preparation going underway at the USIU campus. The press team consists of the Writers Department, plus the Videography and Photography Departments. The former department is currently writing and editing news articles, features, alongside writing critical blog entries plus putting up questions for forum discussions on the website.

The video unit is busy dealing with the shooting and editing of videos for the delegates, while the photography department is trying to put together pictures and images that express the mood of the conference, and how preparations are going underway.

“The Writers department is working on a number of articles that discuss the progress of the conference,” said Jared Nyakeri, head of the Writers Department. “We are optimistic that we will give a comprehensive coverage of the conference to the delegates, and we expect them to comment on the articles, and give their suggestions about topics they want us to cover and discuss,” he added.